The Quidnunc is the only one who actually gets something out of the meeting. Accomplish actual work on your own time, meetings are for getting in the loop and finding out the scoop. Mission accomplished if you can come out of one without acquiring a detestable task, and bonus points if you can dump work on someone else.

In nearly 30 years in journalism, I never met a meeting that got anything done. The old dictum that 20 percent do all the work, and 80 percent do all the talking, still holds true. I used to especially despise meetings where, at the end of the meeting, we planned to have another meeting.

All too true. However, the Clotpoll may be hard of hearing and not (yet) aware of it. My father, who was aware of it, still often asked questions in the family that had just been answered. He hadn't consciously heard the answer, but he was subconsciously aware of the topic, which triggered the question.

The force you are looking for is centripetal, not centrifugal; centrifugal force is actually a "fictitious" force, and in any case would send an object away from the center of rotation.

Correction gratefully accepted.

Not sure which of your categories this one fits into, but there's also the guy who comes to the meeting and spends virtually all of it staring into his laptop and poking at the keyboard. I've actually been at meetings where this type described most of the attendees.

He is the social media speciousist, creating a dashboard of digital communication modules for enhanced untelligibility.

I suspect that a sample of females would show the same types - unpleasantness and inefficiency are not exclusively male or female. Clotpoll -lovely word.

True, P the T. The most complete clotpoll I ever met is a woman. Several times a meeting, every single meeting, year after year. Clots the whole meeting right up until someone can provide a verbal anticoagulant.

And of course there's the "Pre-Copernican," for whom the fact that she has been absent from the previous three meetings on the topic is no reason we shouldn't all spend our time reviewing the information she missed.

The centrifugal/centripetal quibble reminded me of this:

http://xkcd.com/123/

It took me some time to appreciate the Vominator who came to our after-lunch meetings. He always “drank lunch,” promptly fell asleep during the meeting, and then awoke to vomit on the conference room table. I thought what he had done was completely disgusting until I noticed that the meeting promptly ended when he changed the conference room into a functioning vomitorium. We encouraged him in his ministrations after we saw the initial salutary effects.

I can add a few types:

Party Liner: this individual, who may be in management, offers little originality but repeats the company position (gathered from other meetings) ad nauseam. Questioned, he merely restates the same thing in a slightly different word order: you understand now, don't you?

The Cheerleader: a person who sucks up to any management representative present by lauding recent company actions, or whitewashing the problems under discussion. A great addition to the contributions of the Party Liner.

[Slaps forehead] How could I have omitted the Sycophant. This species is immediately identifiable by its characteristic call: "Great idea, Boss!"

OK- at the risk of getting my own label here... it is actually possible for meetings to be productive and even the place where work gets done. the bad news is that it requires us to not tolerate the behavior described- including our own.

Meeting get this way because we become sheep and tolerate them like this. And because we come of age without attending meetings that are any better- we just do it that way ourselves.

In the (albeit rare) instances when teams and groups get so disgusted with this kind of meeting that they cannot tolerate it any longer- there is a moment in which, instead of permanently cancelling the meetings, some groups get the guts to manage the meetings and each other differently, In such cases, magic can happen.

Funny thing about magic- it takes work.

Additional character: Speaktolearn - the person who doubles the length of any meeting because of her need to repeat (nearly verbatim) everything that has been covered at the meeting that day.

The most painful meetings I've ever had the rue to sit through were run by The Sorority Matron. At once Clotpoll, Literalist, Party Liner, and Idea Assassin, her primary goal was to bring the cheery elements of "family atmosphere" to our 3+ hour weekly meetings. Pre-school techniques and vapidity were her tools of choice.

Each agenda had a box in the upper corner titled "Notes for Family Discussion" where we were all required to write our personal feelings on life and how the meeting was going, to be read and discussed aloud for team--excuse me--"family" bonding. "There is a reason why people want to shoot themselves at Christmas" disappeared under eraser more than once before Share Time.

After enough insufferable flashbacks to our childhoods, the solution turned out to be a sacrificial lamb with lactose intolerance, combining The Vominator and Auld Reekie. With experimentation, two glasses of milk ensured absolute meeting efficiency at 20 minutes.

Just a nit-pick for fun, but "go off by yourself, talk individually to people" is to have a ... meeting! A small one but nonetheless a meeting. I guess mainly you reduce the chances with 2 of you of those types being in the same meeting. :)

Wow, thanks for the footnote so I know to be offended. Amazing that your field is so insulated - kind of explains the state of the newspaper business I guess.

No need to thank me. I'd hazard a guess that you might have managed to be offended even without the footnote.

I once worked for a Fortune 1000 company that had about 600 people on the corporate campus. From time to time the CEO would just wander in conference rooms and join meetings unannounced. After gauging the productivity, he would ask thoughtful questions, encourage participants and ask "passengers" what their role was. It took no time at all until meeting effectiveness went through the roof. And only those needed would actually attend.

LOL!! So true! LOL!!

STOP IT! STOP IT! I retired from all this in 1991. Now you brought back all those painful memories and feelings!

You forgot about the Scope Creep: the person who's suggestions only serve increase the amount of work (as long as it's not their own).

Please, please, please update your list to include some of the suggestions in the comments!

How about the Daisypup? Part Wallflower, part helpless puppy. This person is often the most attractive person at the table and also the one with the dimmest light bulb in their head. He is so clueless that you're not sure if it's an act. His saving grace is that he is notoriously reluctant to speak up in the meeting. When called upon he will cheerfully respond, "Sounds like a plan!" or "Let's Rock'n Roll!" At first you are relieved because he will have no impact on the meeting at all, until you realize that HE is the one who will have to put the meeting's agenda into action.

Lol... I'm definitely a maverick :D

What about the Repeatoriginist... The person who repeats what others say as if he's having a profound, original thought.